Derek Baker

Scissors and paste: Corpus Christi, Cambridge, MS 139 again

Amongst the manuscripts bequeathed to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by Matthew Parker in 1575 is one of the most important surviving collections of sources for the history of the north of England in the twelfth century. Manuscript 139, as it now is, contains, amongst other items, unique, or almost unique, copies of the so-called Historia Regum , which had been ascribed to Symeon of Durham before the end of the twelfth century, its continuation by John of Hexham, and the History of Richard of Hexham. It was a prime, and in part a unique, source of Twysden’s pioneering edition of 1652, and its value is in no way diminished today. This apart, the manuscript is of great interest as a manuscript, and the problems of its date, provenance and composition are still the subject of debate. The most recent and definitive account of the manuscript was given by Peter Hunter Blair in a fifty-five page article contributed to the volume of essays edited by Nora Chadwick under the title Celt and Saxon . His conclusions, which supersede all earlier views, were that the manuscript was compiled in the period c 1165–70 at the cistercian house of Sawley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the subsequent discovery of an erased Sawley ex libris , now visible only in ultra-violet light, and dated by Ker to the late twelfth/early thirteenth century, reinforced his view. Yet there still remain problems and uncertainties, and my purpose here is first to sketch in a little of the history of the manuscript in its present form, and secondly, by further examination of particular aspects of its to supplement and qualify Blair’s conclusions.

Legend and reality: the case of Waldef of Melrose

The Life of Saint Waldef by Jocelin of Furness is the only surviving account of a man who would seem to have played a prominent part in the political and ecclesiastical affairs of the north in the middle years of the twelfth century, and who acquired a reputation for conventional sanctity. Apart from Jocelin’s account, written almost fifty years after his subject’s death, there are only a handful of contemporary references to Waldef. If the historian was limited to these Waldef would be a shadowy figure indeed, and the annals of the twelfth-century church would lose a man who appears, both in Jocelin’s narrative and the pages of modern historians, almost as a second-rank Ailred.

Popular Piety in the Lodèvois in the Early Twelfth Century: The Case of Pons De Léras

In 1854 the Congregation of Rites suppressed the feast and cult of the ‘blessed’ Pons de Leras. At its suppression the cult of ‘Saint’ Pons had been formally part of the liturgy of the diocese of Lodeve for a little over a century: there are no records of any earlier popular devotions. The inclusion of Pons in the liturgy of the diocese was the work of Mgr Jean-Georges de Souillac (1732–50), the penultimate pre-revolutionary bishop of Lodeve, and the composition of a liturgical office for the feast of the blessed Pons de Leras (18 September) was the work of Souillac’s successor Mgr Jean-Felix-Henri de Fumel (1750–90). It is difficult to see a pre-eminent piety at work in this distinguished patronage. Even the most assiduous of recent local historians of the Lodevois, who makes it plain that he would be glad to see the cult re-instated, is quite clear that the eighteenth-century proclamation of the ‘blessed’ Pons was une affaire d’Etat et non pas d’Eglise , owing nothing to papal approval, which was never sought, and confined solely to Lodeve.

Theodore of Sykeon and the historians

Saint George, it was noted in the epilogue to an eleventh-century collection of his miracles, ‘did not only perform his daily miracles in his own person: his gracious power was extended to those whose life accorded with his, and whose trust in him was beyond doubt or question. Sometimes he rescued them from the perils that oppressed them: sometimes he collaborated with them in the miracles and wonders which they performed. Of this there is ample testimony, but particular reference may be made to that great and famous Theodore, called the Sykeote, whom everybody knows. In all this George followed his master Christ, who gave his disciples power over demons, and sent them out to heal the sick.’ Of the extent of Theodore’s posthumous reputation there can be no question.